Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives

Virtues

Spiritual Reading - Who Needs It?

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

I am afraid that for many Catholics the term "spiritual reading"
is either a strange expression, and they are not sure what it means, or they
have heard that monks and nuns do it--whatever it is. But spiritual reading
is neither strange nor exotic as by now centuries of Christian experience testifies.
In order to do some justice to this very practical subject I propose to ask
a series of questions and answer them as we go along. My hope is to end up
with one good answer to the one question which is the subject of our reflections:
spiritual reading---who needs it?

Why is reading, any reading, important? Why is reading influential? What
is spiritual reading? Why is spiritual reading necessary? Then a few closing
words about implications.

Why Reading is Important

We begin to get some idea about the importance of reading from the simple fact
that so many people are doing it. Thousands of newspapers throughout the world,
some with daily circulation of more than a million; thousands of periodicals,
some with monthly circulation of many millions; thousands of books published
annually, some by now with a publication history that is astronomical. Reading
must be important seeing the influence that the printed word has had on human
civilization.

A good date for dating the beginning of the modern world is the dawn of the
age of print. Man's history will never be the same. But the real proof for
the significance of the printed word is the seldom realized fact that when God
began what we call His public revelation, first to the Jews and then to the
people of the New Israel who followed Christ, He made sure that the substance
of this revelation was not only communicated orally, but was written down under
divine inspiration. The existence of the Bible, written in an age when very
few people could read or write, is a lasting testimonial to what the Holy Spirit
thinks of reading. He first of all made sure that the Semitic people discovered
what we call phonetic writing about 2,000 B.C. and then provided to inspire
persons to set down on parchment what God wanted all mankind to know about the
divine mind and will until the end of time. God invented writing to make reading
of Scriptures possible.

Why is Reading Influential?

Not only is reading important, but perhaps more than any other means of social
communication it is in my judgment the most influential. This calls for some
explanation in view of the marvelous discoveries of the electronics media---the
telephone and telegraph, radio and television, the film and radio and their
derivatives. I have no intention of making any competitive comparisons between
the written word and other means of transmitting ideas or attitudes from one
person to others. My intention is the more practical one of emphasizing why
the written, generally the printed word, is so influential.

Reading is so influential because the ideas expressed in a piece of good writing
are concentrated, they are not diffused. Again, what is published is, by the
law of economics if for no other reason, done professionally by persons who
know what they are saying and say it intelligently and persuasively, even when
they may not be writing truthfully. The written word, being in competition
with other written words is done carefully and by and large in such a way that
a maximum of thought goes into a minimum of content. Moreover, what is being
read is normally done in solitude---the mind of the writer affecting the mind
of the reader in a quiet, reflective and by definition sympathetic mood. If
I don't like what I'm reading I simply close the book and the author never knows.
Whereas when I am speaking I know exactly when somebody in the audience does
not want to listen. If they are kind they go to sleep. Some manifest their
being bored or displeased in more dramatic ways. But not so with reader. The
one who reads wants to be told. Still again, what is read remains written.
Whence for all times has remained as part of our faith the famous words of Pilate:
"Quod scripse scripsi"(What I have written, is written.) Consequently
it can be read and reread years, centuries later. What is written, as every
author hopes, is written not only for his own generation but for generations
yet unborn.

Finally, unlike in other forms of discourse, the written word can be gone over
and analyzed. It can be studied and scrutinized and as a consequence it can
have an impact on the human spirit that is incalculable. It is therefore understandably
indelible. Somewhere years ago when I began studying Latin there was a phrase
written which you may be sure I memorized: "Verba volant, scripta manent.
Spoken words fly, what is written stays."

What is Spiritual Reading?

We can begin by describing it in terms of what it is not and that is easy.
Spiritual reading is not secular reading. But more positively spiritual reading
is that reading whose purpose as writing is to assist the believer to better
know, love, and serve God and thereby become more God-like, which means more
holy, especially in his life of prayer and the practice of Christian virtue.
Notice I said that spiritual reading is that reading whose purpose as writing
is to assist the believer. Why put it just that way? Sounds odd! The reason
is that there is a sense in which any kind of reading, even the most obviously
secular, like the daily papers or a popular novel, may, and by now I have been
told, is considered spiritual reading when my purpose in reading is spiritual.
By that standard, reading Time or Newsweek or worse, provided a person could
say "my purpose is spiritual," makes it spiritual. Not so. You cannot
canonize the secular.

I am not here then speaking of spiritual reading in that broad sense. Spiritual
reading in our consideration is writing that was written with a spiritual purpose
and not only one that may happen to be read with perhaps a religious intention
in mind. Quite frankly, all our reading---even the most secular---should be
spiritualized, but that is not the same as spiritual reading.

Concretely the forms that this kind of spiritual reading can take are not as
numerous as may seem. I will reduce them to five---just five: the Scriptures
or the Bible; the teachings of the Church or Sacred Doctrine; the History of
the Church in general or any one of the myriad of aspects of the Church's passage
through time; biography or the lives and thoughts of saintly persons, either
by themselves or by someone else; then, in a class by itself, any kind of reflection
on any of the preceding categories which may be learned or personal, scholarly
or practical, or any combination of these. You will notice where I placed the
last category, in the last place.

Why is Spiritual Reading Necessary?

Spiritual reading is necessary as the normal way of nourishing the Christian
faith, which means getting food for the mind so that the will and affections
might love and serve God accordingly. I say the normal way, allowing for exceptions
that simply prove the rule. We must take the ordinary means to preserve our
physical life and the obligation is a grave one. Among these ordinary means
none is more basic than food for the body. Without eating the body dies. And
it is no comfort to say I am alive now and there is food outside of me. Either
that food gets inside of me or I die. Being near me is not enough. I can be
surrounded by food and starve. So too we must take the ordinary means to preserve
our supernatural life and again the obligation is a grave one. Among these
ordinary means none is more basic than food for the mind to nourish the faith.
Without food for the mind the faith withers and dies, and there is no mental
nourishment for the soul more available and accessible and providable than spiritual
reading as just described. Not to nourish the mind, and in the mind the faith,
with this food is to tempt Providence, which means to tempt God.

Pause for a moment to reflect on the millions of thought
hours spent daily in a single large American city literally devouring the pabulum
dished out in such truckloads to the people. Then ask yourself how many of
these people spend one tenth of one percent of their mind-life a day reading,
say, the inspired text of the Bible or the documents of the Church or the life
of a saint, and you begin to see how urgently necessary it is to convince ourselves
and those under our care that they must do spiritual reading. Otherwise, they
will spiritually die, and they are dying.

If we further reflect on the other millions of, shall I call them thought hours,
that people spend watching television or listening to the radio, the urgency
of what we are saying becomes even more imperative. There must be, absolutely
must be steady diet of sound nourishment for the soul at the risk of losing
one's spiritual life, and that is the verdict of Christian history. However,
this necessity is not only for survival, it is also and especially for spiritual
growth. If I wish to have God on my mind during the day, I must read about
God and what He has to say. That is why He spoke. It would in effect be telling
God: "Well, I've heard that, come to think of it, there are some writings
they tell me You inspired. How interesting!" And then not even pay God
the courtesy of reading what He said.

If I wish to talk to God in humble and easy conversation I must read about
what God is, what He has done, and is doing in ages past and today, so that
I might have something to talk about when I am in prayer. As we know now from
experience the surest way of lapsing into silence is to enter a person's company
having nothing on my mind to say. If I wish to develop a strong Catholic faith
that is clear and sound and unalloyed, I must read what the Catholic Church
teaches, since her teaching comes to me especially in written form. But let
me make sure I read what the Catholic Church teaches. If I read, which I should,
what others tell me about what she teaches or explain to me either God's revelation
or the Church's doctrine, let me again make sure they are persons who themselves
are faithful to the Church, and who love the Church. Not everyone who writes
about the Church loves her.

Moreover, if I wish to make sense of what is happening in the Church today
I must read about what happened in the Church yesterday. If I am to be inspired
by the Mystical Body of Christ, I must know this is not only the post-conciliar
territory in which I live; it is not only that short span of time which I call
today. The Mystical Body has a history. It has had centuries of suffering
and persecution. It has struggled and fought with error, and has marvelously,
not only survived, but thrived on opposition. If I am to be strong in my faith
in this century, I'd better know something about what the faith of believers
before me taught them. Otherwise, as so many are doing today, we are liable
to barter our faith for a mess of pottage. All of this means I must read the
history of the Mystical Body and identify myself in spirit with the by now millions
who have believed before me, with the hundreds of thousands who shed their blood
in defense of the faith that I treasure. I will thus be inspired to do my share
in preserving and extending and nourishing the faith by laboring in the Church's
apostolate.

If I wish to become holy I must read about holy people. Their faith will strengthen
mine. Their trust in divine providence will encourage mine. Above all their
victory over self, the world and the evil spirit will spur me on to victory.
How we need this encouragement! Only saints reproduce saints.

There is such a thing as supernatural genealogy. Unless I read the lives of
saintly people, their sentiment, their trials and victories, how can they reproduce
themselves in me?

I still have a few simple implications. By now one implication should be clear
enough: Who needs spiritual reading? Everyone who wants to become Christlike!
There is no choice. The Savior is not for nothing called the Word of God.
We seldom think of Him as also---how I like the phrase---the Written Word of
God, written in the Gospels which describe His life and in the apostolic writings
His life inspired; written in the Church He founded and of which He continues
as her invisible Head; written in the saintly men and women who are faithful
images of what their Master had been. This Master is unique. He not only teaches,
He reproduces. All of this is ready to be read by us, if only we are willing
to read. Christ, we are told by St. John, is the light that shines in the dark.
And, if we are honest, we must admit how dark the darkness is. We need Him,
the Light of our own world, to enlighten us about how we are to serve Him, so
that we might love Him and bring others to love and serve Him too.